A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked a directive allowing students to use bathrooms and locker rooms as per their gender identity. The ruling was pronounced before schools are scheduled to open for the next academic year.
Texas and 11 other states had sued the Department of Education and Department of Justice over the directive which extends the Title IX law to interpret restrictions over bathroom use in accordance with birth genders as sexual discrimination.
US District Judge Reed O 'Connor said that the federal education law in Title IX was not ambiguous about the definition of sex determined at birth.
He wrote in his order that interpreting Title IX to change the definition of sex to include gender identity was outside the enforcement purview of federal government.
…show more content…
"This case presents the difficult issue of balancing the protection of students ' rights and that of personal privacy ... while ensuring that no student is unnecessarily marginalized while attending school," the judge wrote.
The court order said that "Defendants are enjoined from enforcing the Guidelines against Plaintiffs and their respective schools, school boards, and other public, educationally-based institutions. Further, while this injunction remains in place, Defendants are enjoined from initiating, continuing, or concluding any investigation based on Defendant ' interpretation that the definition of sex includes gender identity in Title IX 's prohibition against discrimination on the basis of